M 



Introduction 



EX of fi)rt}'. recalling their childhood, remember that 

 bo_\s then had only one idea when they found a bird's 

 nest — to take the eggs out. If a bird were striking in 

 colors or \arit}', or for an}- reason, its distinction was only 

 an added incenti^e to kill it if possible. Men of forty have 

 seen the wild pigeon, but see it no more. They can scarcely 

 find now one pair of the brilliant, graceful and confiding wood 

 ducks in the romantic haunts where there were hundreds. 

 The handsome cardinal, with his cheery winter whistle, has 

 practically disappeared in many localities where its flashes of 

 color were the commonest sights. In the thousand lovely 

 swales and birch edges of Southern New England the wood- 

 cock is now a rare bird save in the few days of migratory 

 "flights," and then there is only a small fraction of the former 

 abundance. 



The elegant and beautiful brown thrashers, our glorious 

 "sandy mocking bird," nesting too convenient!)' low for cats 

 and prying human eyes, had, a few years ago, almost disap- 

 peared from hundreds of thickets and fence foliage where the 

 boys who are now men of forty could rely on finding them. 

 The dramatic swoops and booms of the nighthawk, beating 

 the coverts of the evening air and sweeping innumerable in- 

 sects into his curious mouth, open from ear to ear, can be 

 missed through a whole September now; the writer remem- 

 bers upwards of 200 being bagged in a single sunset "shoot" 

 in \'irginia, in his boyhood. Scores of delicate and interest- 

 ing small bird neighbors, bent onl)- on adding beauty to the 

 world and doing each his bit in ridding us of ugly insect 

 pests, seemed, a few }'ears ago, to be headed toward the fate 

 of the wild pigeon. 



But no one has noticed, in this process of bird destruc- 

 tion, any diminution in caterpillars and the scores of varieties 

 of plant-destroying bugs. There has been no lack of tree and 

 plant devouring insect pests of a hundred kinds. Indeed, 

 while anything like a bug census is obviously impracticable, 

 the same general observation which showed us that the birds 

 were decreasing was equally convincing as to the increase, 

 with equal steps, of noxious insects and their ravages. 



